Almost Lover
by katherineismikaelson
Summary: Lana Rivers just moved into Mystic Falls, looking for new friends and a fresh start. With no memory of the last 18 years, Lana has to navigate high school not knowing who she really is. It isn't until she meets two vampires who claim they love her when she realizes how much she actually doesn't remember. Klaus/OC/Damon
1. Chapter 1

**I decided to re-write this story. So for those of you who already kind of know what this is about, this is not the story you read before. For those just tuning in, I hope you enjoy.**

 **katherineismikaelson**

* * *

 **2011, Mystic Falls**

My new room looked like it came straight out of an Urban Outfitters catalog, with my queen size bed in the corner of the room with a giant duvet and fluffy pillows and the bricks of the house not covered at all, making it look like a wallpaper all in itself and the only thing to light up my room were the Christmas lights Auntie Nikki put up and some obscure lamp that looked like it came from the expensive part of Good Will. The posters I had packed and folded perfectly in my bag would fit right in with the vibe of the room. I felt like I lived in a Tumblr ad, which wasn't far from I wanted my whole life.

Nikki was humming down the hall in the kitchen, fixing some tea for the both of us. I told her I wasn't really into tea, but she insisted since this was the tea she created all by herself (with the help of the internet, I just knew she couldn't create some tea all by herself). At 27, she thought she was close enough to my age to design a room that was "hip and in style," even though she hadn't been a teenager since Kurt Cobain was alive.

Before I could get settled in the new room, the doorbell rang, rocking the tiny house Nikki lived in on the outskirts of Mystic Falls. I sighed, knowing that I would be able to hear everything if this was Nikki's new boyfriend she was talking about. All I really wanted to do was fall onto the comfortable looking bed and close my eyes. Not to sleep, since sleeping was so rare for me nowadays, but just pretend that I'm back home with my real family.

"Hi!" I heard Nikki's voice screech, making me shut my eyes closed as quickly as I could. Maybe if I tried hard enough, I could block them all out. Unfortunately, my life had always proved to be as difficult as possible. "Lana, come meet the neighbors."

I dropped my bag in the middle of the pale-carpeted floor and slinked out of the room. As soon as I stepped out, I saw a tall, middle-aged woman and her equally beautiful daughter. Both had smiles wide across their features, lighting up their blue eyes. Despite my bad attitude, the young girl's smile made me feel just a little bit better. Being such a great actress, I put a smile on as well and greeted them like a good person would.

"Hi," the brunette said. She waved to me while her mother held the cookies in her hands out further towards me. "I'm Carly. And my mom, Cara." _Huh, Cara; what do you know?_ "And you're Lana."

"I guess I am."

"I wanted to welcome you to the town," Carly told me, "and invite you to the senior's party. Really, everyone's going, even if you're not a senior. What grade are you in this year?"

I shrugged. "Senior. Coincidence?"

Carly clapped her hands excitedly. Both Aunt Nikki and I jumped at her sudden pep. "Ah! I think not. This party was meant for you. God knew. Of course He did. This is your senior slash Welcome to Mystic Falls party."

Throw up was in the back of my throat, threatening to spill out all over the welcome cookies her mother made. Carly's excitement was just sickening at this point. I didn't need all the pep she brought with her. And it wasn't like I could just say no to her. I would feel to bad.

"Yeah, that'd be great. When is it?"

Carly's blue eyes flickered down to her perfectly tan wrist that had an expensive watch strapped to it. "Oh, looks like it's been going on for fifteen minutes already. We should head over there."

 _Dammit._

"That's great," I rejoiced, still smiling. "Let me just grab my wallet and phone."

As soon as I turned on my heel, the smile was dropped and my frown reappeared. My whole plan of just sitting in my room until I had to go to school was officially interrupted by some annoying neighbor who was too nice to say no to. Already, I could tell she wasn't going to leave me alone until we were the best of friends, and even then she wouldn't leave my side. Carly was nothing like Kara, the friend I had back home (and who coincidentally shared the same name as Carly's mom as well). There was a reason I didn't befriend girls like Carly.

I couldn't be around them too long or I would puke my guts up.

Kara and I always were as dull and depressed as possible. We were as close to emo as you could get without being emo. We watched movies together and moaned about how artistic they were and went out to parties that only included the two of us and did everything together just because we were like-minded souls. I was the Kristen Stewart of the black world.

I slipped my phone and wallet into my back pocket and pulled on a shirt that was more appropriate for a party setting. Nikki and the two neighbors were in the exact position I left them in when I went to get my things. They literally didn't move at all, or even speak because I would have heard them.

The only difference was in Aunt Nikki's expression. She still had a smile on her face, but had the nastiest look possible in her eyes towards Carly's mother. And Carly's mom had the fakest smile I'd ever seen from a human being given to another human being. Apparently there was some bad blood between the two, and there needed to be a fight I would pay to see.

"I'm ready as I can be," I said to Carly, who looked quite happy to get out of the tense atmosphere our elders had created. "We can take my car, if you'd like?"

"Oh, no," Carly's mother interrupted, now looking at me again. "Take the Cadillac, dear. I don't mind." Carly didn't even put up a fight. She grabbed the keys out of her mother's hand so quickly my eyes couldn't keep up. "Have fun, girls!"

"Thank you!"

As soon as we both got in the nice car, Carly blew out a large breath as if she'd been holding it for a long time. "Jesus Christ, my mom is exhausting." Her infectious smile left no trace on her face as she pulled out of my driveway.

I scoffed. "Yeah, kind of." _So she's not really that happy._

"I hate to seem shallow, but I literally only invited you so I could drive the Cadillac," she told me. Suddenly her voice changed and her posture was slouched and she just generally had a different aura about her. An aura that I would be drawn to with my borderline-emo self.

Shrugging, I replied, "I'd probably do the same thing. And I get to be driven to a party in an expensive car? It's a good day to be a new girl."

Carly smiled over at me. "So where did you move from?"

"Phoenix."

"Who the fuck lives in Phoenix?"

"Well, not me anymore. The town I lived in was small, but not this small. Holy shit, the houses are so close together."

"That's Mystic Falls for ya. Why'd you move?"

My heart stung. That was a really good question. Because my parents thought it would be good for me? Because they thought that somehow he would find me and take care of what he started? Who was to say he didn't just flee town? Why did I have to change my whole life after something I couldn't even remember happened?

"To escape the past, or some bullshit like that," I told her. "I'mma be honest: I don't know. Because my Aunt Nikki is lonely? Something like that."

"Mysterious." Carly looked over at me to see if I was lying. As a compulsive liar, I knew there was no way she could tell even if I wasn't telling the truth. For the past six months since I "woke up" lying has been my closest friend; closer than Cara. "Well, you'll fit right in here. There's a bunch of weird people that go to our high school, yours truly included. And there's also a lot of dumbasses so watch out."

"Will do. Whose party is this again?"

"Oh, Caroline Forbes's. She's one of the popular girls." I noted the bitterness in her voice when she said the name, not as if she was jealous of the girl but as if she was scorned by Caroline before.

"And is she a dumbass or a weirdo? I have a feeling she's a dumbass."

Houses of similarity passed by us, looking like each one came straight out a movie. Each one had differing shades within the same color, but built exactly the same way with two stories, a porch, a nice green lawn and some bushes cut to perfection. At least in Phoenix we looked the same while simultaneously looking different. Just looking at the houses made me glad that Aunt Nikki lived farther out from all the other houses and had its own look, despite that look making us appear poor.

"You would be right," Carly told me. "Most all the popular girls are. She's blonde." I nodded, as if _that_ is the reason why she's dumb.

"So why are we going there? It's obvious you don't like her."

"My mom thinks I'm social and I like free drinks," she said, shrugging. How could I argue with that? Aunt Nikki thought because I was the talk of the school back in Phoenix that I was popular and social. The truth was I was looked at as the girl who almost got murdered after getting her ass raped. That was possibly the only reason why anyone even looked my way. Kara told me that we used to be right in the middle: not popular, not losers. That was exactly what I planned to do at Mystic High.

Unlike other teens, doing drugs was no longer something I enjoyed. Kara and I always used to go out and get more fucked up than imagined, as she told me, but after everything that happened, I stopped doing drugs. The only drugs I did now was the medication I had been prescribed ever since waking up in a literal hole.

The drive to Caroline's was fairly quick, yet out of the way of the rest of the town houses. We went deep into the woods just to come up to a house that was bigger than any of the others I'd seen in Mystic Falls. In fact, this house reminded me of something out of a Tim Burton movie. It had at least four floors, a Victorian build and a general mist surrounding it. Caroline's house didn't remind me of a popular cheerleader dwelling.

"Is Caroline shitting hundreds out her ass or what?" I asked as Carly pulled up next to the many cars in the large driveway. Before Carly even turned the car off, I could hear the music from outside.

"No, this isn't her house. This is the Salvatore Boarding House, where the two sexiest brothers live."

"Who?"

"Stefan and Damon Salvatore," she explained, getting out on her side. As we walked up the driveway, and as I stared wide eyed and jaw dropped, she continued, "They just moved back into town last year. Basically this house has been in their family for generations. I guess it was a school or something back in the day. I don't really know. I'm just glad I get to be here for the first time."

"So you've never been here?"

"Nope, this is the first party that's ever been held here. And I'm tryna get shit-faced." The keys dangled in Carly's hands, making me question her. In a quick, yet conspicuous move, I grabbed the keys.

"I'll stay sober and drive home then."

Since it was such a small town and the sheriff could easily find me, Carly shrugged, not worrying that I'd steal her mother's Cadillac. I slipped the keys next to my wallet in my back pocket.

Carly put her hand up to knock on the door, being the polite person I just discovered her to be, but her knuckles never made it to the wood. The door swung open to a light-haired, tall teen with beautiful blue eyes. I swooned at blonde boy, wondering if I was in heaven or in a dream. He smiled down at me, flashing his pearly whites.

"Hey." His voice deep and raspy, yet soft and inviting like his smile. My eyes flicked to Carly who looked less interested in the boy than he in her. "Carly and…?"

"Lana," I offered. "I'm new in town. As in, I literally got off the plane about two hours ago."

"Oh, well, welcome to Mystic Falls. And welcome to the party."

"And you are?"

He held his giant hand out. "Oh, I'm Matt. Matt Donovan."

Carly didn't give me a chance to reply to him. She grabbed my arm and pushed past him into the dark, loud, humid party made up by sweaty, drunk teenagers. "Stop trying to trick the new girl into liking, Matt. She'll get to know you soon enough." Carly basically ran away from the blonde-haired boy and dragged me with her.

We made it to the table with some sketchy looking food and a keg full of what I could only guess was cheap beer. Immediately Carly pulled me away from the table and whispered loudly over the music, "We ain't about to drink that Seven Eleven shit. We gotta find the good alcohol."

 _Great._

I leaned in and whispered back, "I'm not returning you to your mother like this. You're sleeping at mine tonight." I made out a smile on Carly's face in the dim light of what I could only guess to be a living room before she turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd. It took some really good intuition on my part to actually keep up with her.

Unfortunately, for the both of us, Carly didn't find her good alcohol. She only found a friend whom I didn't think she liked all that much.

"Carly! Girl, you're here!" The other girl had dark hair as well, but she was shorter than Carly. "And you brought a friend." I could barely see the other girl in the dim light. My eyes could make out her skinny frame and nice eyes that literally shined out her excitement. All I really knew what that this girl was definitely a heartbreaker.

"Dana, hey," Carly said. "Yeah, this is Lana. She's new in town. Show her around while I find some whiskey. Or at least some vodka."

Carly pushed me towards the other girl and then disappeared as if she was never there in the first place. Dana's smile was still evident when I looked back to see her after catching my balance. It was almost as terrifying as Carly's smile when I first met her. At least I actually knew why she was so happy: she was drunk off her ass.

Dana could barely stand without swaying and she looked as though her mind was somewhere else.

"It's so good to meet you!" she said to me, putting her hands on my shoulders. "I think you should meet my other friends."

I nodded, unable to find words to say. All I really wanted to do was find a corner or a bathroom I could lock myself in and just text Kara how much I wanted to leave this damn town. First night and I already got myself dragged in a situation with a bunch of drunk teenagers. Dana took my silence as some kind of permission for her to take my hand.

She led me through the dancing, drunk crowd, bumping into people as we went. She didn't even apologize for her drunken behavior, but everyone else was too drunk to care or notice. Finally, we made it to two girls and a guy standing at the stair entrance to the nice foyer we had stepped into at some point. I still couldn't see very well, which I discovered was because all the curtains were closed, but the light from the door opening and closing lit up the faces of the three people Dana and I stood in front of.

"Elena, Caroline!" The two girls looked down at the both of us. "This is Lana. She's new. And she's here."

Caroline, the blonde one, smiled down at me while Elena, the other one, looked a little more distracted. Not in the way that she was drunk; in the way that she was the only sober one looking out to the sea of drunks. Caroline stepped down from the third step to talk to me while Elena leaned into the boy who stood next to her. I kept my eyes on the both of them while Caroline spoke to me.

"I'm Caroline! This is kind of my party."

Looking at her, I replied, "It's crazy. You must be popular with people in other towns." This made Caroline laugh and smile as though I complimented her.

"Yeah, I guess the whole school showed up."

I looked back up to the other two to see they joined Caroline in stepping down to the foyer level to speak to me. Both of them looked quite uncomfortable, but tried to hide it behind friendly smiles. There was obviously something going on with them that no one else at the party was aware of.

"I'm Elena, and this is Stefan," the other girl introduced. From what I could see in the dim lighting, she was pretty too. Every single girl I met since coming to this town looked like they belonged in some Vogue magazine or at least as an upcoming model. It actually wasn't fair that they all had outgrown their awkward teenage years still as teenagers. "Welcome to Mystic Falls."

"Thank you," I said back. I looked to my side to see if Dana wanted to drag me anywhere else, but she was no longer by my side. Frantically, I switched to look at my right and then my left again and then behind me. Of course she was nowhere to be found and I was stuck again with someone (now multiple people) I didn't know. "Okay, so Dana's gone."

When I turned back to the three, Caroline had gone another direction and only Elena was looking at me. The only thing I could make out was a soft smile on her features, as if she understood how confused I was.

"Don't worry, you can stick with us. We won't just ditch you."

Elena stepped aside as if to invite me up the stairs where they had been standing before. I took this invitation with open arms and stood right where Caroline was standing. The sea of heads bobbing up and down and cups being thrown up in the air made me smile. This was the typical teen life and I didn't remember one bit of it. My last six months were full of tears and therapy sessions, not raves and alcohol.

"Where'd you move from?" Elena asked.

"Phoenix."

"This must be quite the change."

"Definitely not as hot here. It's actually really nice here. I like Mystic Falls."

Before either of us could say anything else, another person walked up to us. The dim lights reflected off his icy blue eyes, but his jet black hair blended right in with the dark. He stood quite tall compared to me and I was on the third step. Everything about him screamed sexy and mysterious, something that I had always wanted to be. This dim lighting was perfect for our meeting place, making the situation seem even… creepier. I say this because of what he said to me.

The man looked me straight in the eyes, stopping completely still, and said loud enough for me to hear over some Kanye West song, "Lana."

The stairway wasn't too wide; definitely not wide enough for three bodies to stand side by side without touching. I could feel Elena tense up as well, not knowing what this guy meant. My brain didn't comprehend what he had said until he took a step forward towards me. I didn't get the vibe from him that he was a rapist, but I couldn't remember my rapist's face; this could have been the guy. He could have followed me here like my father feared he would.

I took a step back, going farther up the stairs, when the guy took his step closer towards me. Stefan stepped in between us, putting his hand on the guy's chest. The blue-eyed man didn't spare even a glance at Stefan. He stared right at me as if he were more confused than me. "How are you here?"

"Damon, what are you talking about?" Stefan asked. The man still didn't tear his eyes away from me. The longer he stared, the more I wanted to just take the keys in my pocket and leave. In my mind, I was thinking of all the ways I could say sorry to Carly for just leaving her without a car.

Elena wasted no time. She took my arm in her grip and led me up the stairs away from the crazy man who somehow knew my name. Elena led me into one of the many rooms on the second floor.

She flicked on the switch and real light flooded the room, making my eyes adjust once again to this house. Before she could close the door and fill me in on who the fuck that was, Damon appeared right in front of me with Stefan in tow.

My eyes couldn't keep up with his moving figure until his hands were on my cheek and he looked down at me with sad eyes. I gasped at his sudden movements, praying that I would make it out of this dream alive. This had to have been a dream. There was no way any human could move as fast as him; and there was no way my first day of moving into a new town I would get caught by the guy I was running away from.

"Lana, how are you here?"

My voice was quiet, nearly silent, but he still heard me. "Who are you?"

"It's me. Damon. Salvatore."

I shook my head. "I don't know who that is."

"You know me, Lana," he pushed, pulling me closer somehow. If Damon and I got any closer, would actually melt into him. "We know each other."

"Look, Damon Salvatore, I might have known you, but… Look, I have amnesia? I don't remember anything from the last 18 years of my life."

This time he shook his head. "No, Lana, you knew me. In 1894." As soon as he said this I freaked out. I was about to be kidnapped by some fast-moving, obsessive freak who thought we actually survived over 100 years when neither of us looked a day over 25.

"Damon, what are you talking about?" Stefan's voice called from behind us.

"She's the one, Stefan," Damon answered Stefan, but didn't look away from me. "She's the one after Katherine."

"The one you loved?"

"Yeah. This is her."


	2. Chapter 2

_**2011, Mystic Falls**_

My phone buzzed on the floor where it was charging, but I made no move to get it. All morning, it had been buzzing like the disappearing bees, making me think somehow an insect got trapped in the Apple product. Unfortunately, I knew the truth. It was either Damon or Elena trying to get my attention. As I had said last night, I didn't want anything to do with either of them. I didn't know what Damon meant, I didn't know who he was and I _definitely_ thought he was crazy when he told me that he was a vampire.

Who the hell said that to people?

I didn't give a flying fuck if he thought himself to be a blood-sucking creature, but I did care that he tried to pass that off as a reason that we knew each other in the past. There was a reason the town didn't see too much of Damon Salvatore; he was crazy.

Elena told me not to worry and not to freak out over this, seeming more like the sane one, but she didn't act as though Damon was crazy. She was nervous. As if she actually believed what he was saying, and that I was somehow a supernatural creature that reappeared after Damon _saw_ me die. I didn't trust her either.

Carly groaned in her sleep, twisting and turning on my bed. Just to keep out of her way, I moved closer to the unpainted wall and give Carly's hung-over self some space. She still reeked of alcohol; at some point in the night, she got vodka spilled all over her and then she refused to take a shower when we got to my house at nearly one in the morning. Carly wanted to stay at the party to see if she could sleep with the one and only Damon Salvatore, but he was too interested in me to pay attention to her. I finally dragged her out of the house, unwillingly on her part, and aimlessly wandered around in her car until I finally found the way back to my house.

Aunt Nikki knew as soon as we walked in the door that Carly would need to throw up. Being the dope aunt she was, she didn't ask any questions and helped me get Carly to my bed. She gave me the stern look telling me not to pull this shit again, but didn't give me the talk we both knew I needed but she didn't want to give.

Carly vomited her guts out. Three times in fact. I could still slightly smell the puke pizza on her breath if she was close enough to me.

Not only did I not want to look at my phone, I couldn't. If I moved even just to get off the bed, Carly would be woken up. I knew that I would have to deal with her once she woke up and that wasn't something I was ready for yet.

The only thing I could do right now was try to think about my life now that I was the object of an obsession the first day in a new town. Was this going to affect school? Would Damon just show up in the middle of my class and demand my audience? Would he follow me home and night, screaming at me that we were in love once?

Or would he get so angry at me for ignoring him that he would try to suck my blood?

" _Fuck."_

My head snapped down to see Carly with her eyes beginning to open. Despite throwing up a few times last night, it definitely looked like she needed to puke her guts up again one more time. My mind went from Damon and the rest of the crazies to how much Carly drank last night as I looked at her pale, sick face. Her voice was weak and cracked three times within saying one word. My new friend definitely wasn't going to have a good morning. And if she couldn't control her

"Please tell me we're not at mine," she mumbled into my pillow, loud and coherent enough for me to understand.

"Nope, we're at mine. I figured you wouldn't want me to bring you to a mother that would kill you if she saw you like this."

"It's not even that she would be mad at me for drinking. She'd be mad that I looked and acted trashy."

"What do you need from me?" I asked her, pushing myself up by my arms. Carly groaned again for some reason, probably now realizing her hangover was making itself known to her, and possibly soon to me.

"Tylenol, and then I'll be out of your hair," she said quickly, picking herself up from my bed after me. She sat on the edge of my bed, holding her head in pain. With her face looking down, I couldn't tell if she had closed her eyes because of the sun flooding through the sunroof I couldn't cover up just yet or if she was trying to get used to the flashing pain that went along with looking around in a brightly lit room.

Of course she just had to ask for something I didn't have access to. Now I had to go and ask my guardian to give me something ten-year olds had access to, but I couldn't in case my nightmares got too bad and I wanted to kill myself. Sure, I had been there before, but I'd at least given some kind of warning before just downing thirty pills.

I pretended to look around my room; in boxes, drawers, and bags. When I (consciously) didn't find anything, my heels spun me around to look at the girl. Carly was still looking at the ground, but this time she was holding up her head with both her hands. Her breathing was so subtle and shallow, I was scared there was something physically wrong. Then I reminded myself that hangovers sucked and all you wanted to do was lay down; not move around.

"I'm sorry," I told her, "I couldn't find anything. But I can quickly go ask Aunt Nikki."

She took one of her hands off her head to wave me off. "It's okay. I'll just take some water."

Nodding, I hopped out of my room and down the narrow hallway to Nikki's room near the kitchen. Instead of knocking, I opened the door slightly, popping my head in the room only to find her not in there.

"Looking for me?"

My auntie's sudden voice behind me made me jump five feet in the air, making jump higher than I had ever before. Ever since I woke up from my coma, I was more scared than ever, at least that's what my parents told me. Kara told me I used to seek out danger and adventure, but ever since I woke up in a ditch, I wanted nothing to do with the unknown.

"Jesus," I gasped, holding my hand to my to my chest. My aunt simply smiled at me, leaning against the doorframe of the entrance to the kitchen. "You scared the actual shit out of me. Now I have to go change my panties."

My aunt scrunched up her nose. "Fuck, Lana, you know I hate that word."

I actually couldn't remember anything past a few months ago, so no, Auntie, I didn't know you hated that word. Instead of saying anything, I just gave her a small smile and nodded, returning back to my work of getting Carly water.

"So do we have any Tylenol?"

"What? Your head is pounding and your body is aching?" my aunt guessed, crossing her arms. I shook my head.

" _Her_ head is pounding and _her_ body is aching. You know, the good influence you introduced me to." I felt slightly terrible for talking shit about Carly like that when I knew that she would never say something like that about me. Carly was a genuine person; if she didn't like you, she wouldn't waste her time on you. That was one thing I could gather about her from the night we had together.

Aunt Nikki pushed herself off the frame and went to the cabinet to get the medication. I made a mental note of where it was just in case things in Mystic Falls didn't work out. "Okay, don't bash the party girl. You were like that, you know."

"Autie, I don't know if you know this, but I have retrograde amnesia and I can't remember anything past the ditch. So, no, I don't know." Her little comment didn't need a snappy reply. As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Her face fell, making me feel even worse about myself, as she pulled out the Tylenol. "Wait, I'm sorry."

"No, you're right," she sighed. "I keep forgetting the reason you moved here is because you can't remember. And you couldn't deal with life back in Philly. I need to start being a good caretaker." She put the Tylenol back in the same spot, completely forgetting that I was a suicidal teenage girl. I almost wanted to laugh at how contradictory she was, but I refrained myself from doing so.

She handed me the two pills just after I turned off the faucet from the sink. "You are a good caretaker, Nikki," I told her, but she just shook her head.

"You don't have to lie to me, Lana. The reason your parents sent you here was because they thought giving you more freedom would be good for you. I'm the one they can send you to because they know I can't pay attention for shit." We both laughed. "But I promise to pay close attention to you. You're not broken or fragile, but you are… I don't know. You're something."

I furrowed my brows at her weird speech. "What are you trying to get at, Aunt Nikki?"

She sighed. "What I'm trying to say, Lana, is I want you to know how much I love you. I remember when you were just a little baby. I would hold you and cuddle you and love you, and you loved me too! I swear, you loved me more than you loved your mom. Every time you saw me, your face lit up and you would come running my way. After hearing about your accident, about what _he_ did to you, my heart broke. I didn't know what to do. The light of my life was in pain and had this terrible condition that caused her to not remember me."

I forgot how hard it was for other people. I forgot that they felt pain when I didn't remember them. I could remember myself in the hospital, lying in the bed wondering what was going on and what would happen to me. My parents came running into the room, hugging me and kissing me all over my head. I just remembered how confused I was. I couldn't recall who they were or why they were so happy to see me. Of course, I put two and two together and figured out they were my parents. But I couldn't remember growing up with them—I couldn't even remember growing up—or seeing them before my accident. They told me before the accident, I told them that I loved them and that I would see them later that night. Apparently, I was missing for three days before they found my comatose body in a ditch three miles outside of town.

Setting the meds and the glass of water down, I hugged my aunt as tightly as I could. She eventually hugged me back moments after being caught off guard by me. Love wasn't the emotion I felt towards her, as terrible as that sounded. I just felt pain and pity towards her; I wanted to take away her pain, knowing that the past me loved her like no other. She didn't deserve the suffering that was being forced upon her, neither did my parents.

I felt wetness on my cheek, causing me to pull back to find the source of the water. I pulled back to find my aunt shedding just a few tears out of her brown orbs. I wanted nothing more than to halt those tears right in their tracks and stop any more from falling. Although I liked to consider myself the kind of girl who didn't give any fucks, I cared about people I didn't know. I couldn't just watch her cry and not feel like a complete asshole for being the one to make her do so, even though it wasn't necessarily my fault.

The only thing I could think of to make her feel better was to lie. Lie straight through my teeth like I was an actress about to be paid thousands of dollars for my performance. "Auntie, I hope you know I still love you, right? I love you like I did all those years ago. I didn't forget that."

She genuinely smiled at me like she believed the lie. Maybe I should have been paid thousands of dollars for my performance. "Thank you, Lana. I love you too. More than you'll ever know."

I sent her one more fake smile before grabbing what I needed and heading back to my room down the hall. Carly was still in the same position, head in her hands and leaning over the bed, probably still in the same amount of pain.

"I got your shit," I announced as loudly as I could without irritating her ears. She looked up at me with half closed eyes, then smiled. She threw her hands up to rejoice.

"Thank the Lord! My savior has come."

"Yeah, yeah, I have come to save you, my child."

For some reason, we had already started acting like we had been best friends for years with our weird talk, but I didn't mind it. Sure, I would have preferred to be here with Kara in this new, mysterious town filled with creepy, weird vampire men; Carly was a good substitute. She knew how to let herself go when she had to, and she knew when to keep her cool at other times. Unlike Carly, Kara would have been bitching and moaning to me about her pounding head, not that I remember if she's ever done that—she just strikes me as the kind of person who didn't know how to handle pain.

I handed Carly the pills and the water before looking through my basically empty drawers and boxes to look for new clothes to change in. When I dragged in Carly's sweaty body to my room, I didn't think to change my clothes before passing out beside her. I woke up in an itchy crop top and restrictive jeans.

Without thinking, I began stripping in front of Carly, which, apparently, is the reason _I_ got _myself_ raped, according to Jacob. (Jacob Quentin was the reason there were such things as Femi-Nazis. He was the most misogynistic man I had ever met in my life, and blamed me for my rape and amnesia. He told me if I wasn't such a tease to everyone that I would have been perfectly fine hanging out with my future-rapist at the lame party I so cleverly decided to attend alone back in Philly. Jacob was the man.)

Once I got my clothes on, I turned back to look at Carly, who returned to having her head in her hands. The poor girl probably had experienced hangovers before but nothing like the one she was experiencing in the present. I had never seen someone drink so much without overdosing or fucking dying; Carly knew how to handle her liquor. She wasn't even as drunk as the other girls who had taken off their clothes at the party and ran around with their tits bouncing up and down. Carly was maybe just as drunk as the new boy I met Matt Donovan was.

Matt was the life of the fucking party. After having my little confrontation with the weird and elusive Damon Salvatore, I fled the scene and bumped into the one and only Matt. He tried to use his charms on me, and though they were working for a little bit, I wasn't interested. Matt was the kind of guy who deserved someone who wasn't as damaged as i was. If he knew all the baggage that came with me, I knew for a fact he would walk, not run, though it would be a speedy walk, in the other direction as soon as he found out.

The Donovan boy basically ran around the house, singing and dancing with a drink in his hand, while drunk off his cute, bubble ass. When he found me, I was wandering around the party senselessly, trying to get as far away as I could from the crazy who claimed he was a vampire and knew me over one hundred years ago.

Matt sent that Donovan smile my way, melting me right in the spot I was standing in. I could have melted into the wall I was leaning on too, leaving a Lana-looking stain on the nice wallpaper.

"Hey, Lana, right?" he said in the loudest soft voice I had ever heard. It made me want to be his girlfriend right then and there; I knew he would treat me right. He would do everything in his power to make me happy, but I wasn't easily entertained. It would be a hard job for him, yet I knew he would be up for the challenge. Was Matt my first love interest in town?

I nodded with a new smile on my face, bringing the cup up to my lips as if I were about to drink the contents in it (truthfully, I just picked up a random cup that I had saw on the nice mahogany end table just so I could look like I was having fun too).

"Having fun?" he had asked.

"I mean, I kind of just had a really weird run in with a vampire, but other than that, I'm good." Matt's jaw dropped. He looked at me as if I had grown four more heads with fire coming out of their mouths. Was it possible that Matt reacted this way because he _knew_ Damon claimed he was a vampire? Well, that would make sense, sort of. If Damon had the balls to tell me, some random stranger who just arrived in town, he could definitely tell Matt, someone who had lived in this town for, I assumed, his whole life.

I laughed to get him to stop looking at me like that. It made me feel more uncomfortable then than when Damon claimed that I was his second true love. Matt started laughing along with me a few moments after I began, realizing that I was "joking."

"Funny."

"Yeah," I had agreed, raising my eyebrows. "What I really mean is, the guy who owns this house is fucking crazy. He told me he was a vampire and that we had met a hundred years ago. Something about me being his epic love."

He changed the subject very quickly, as if what we were talking about was taboo in this town. It made sense that the town called Mystic Falls had some weird shit going on in it, but I didn't realize nearly everyone here were crazy and thought vampires were real.

The rest of the night I spent with Matt, talking about random things on the couch of the Salvatores. Matt seemed like the kind of guy who had his head on straight. He actually wanted to make something of himself out of high school, the reason why he maintained somewhat good grades and worked his ass off at the Mystic Grill when he needed to.

I learned a lot more about him than he wanted me to know. Being drunk, he spilled every secret of his life, to his deadbeat mother to his dead sister. My heart ached for Matt when I heard of all the shit he went through in his few years, but I didn't feel close enough to him to share my own hardships. That was a conversation I could have with him at least twenty-five years into our relationship.

The night ended with Damon Salvatore finding me again, after Matt and I had gone our separate ways, before I could find Carly running around the house. We met in the kitchen, the one place in the house that wasn't filled with sweaty, intoxicated teenagers. Maybe we had met in another life, if that's what Damon had really meant; brown eyes connected with his icy blue ones. It was almost as if time, and everyone around us, had stopped when the windows to our souls found each other.

It scared me, this feeling. My heart had never fluttered like that for anyone. Ever since I woke up in that ditch, Damon Salvatore was the only person I felt like I knew. Sure, once I heard Kara was my best friend, I clung to her like a small baby to their mother. She was the only person who hadn't treated me differently when I awoke from my coma. But Damon...for some odd reason, I felt like I knew him; like him and I were close at some point. Maybe I knew him before, when I would come visit my mother's hometown, and we would play together when I had the chance to, between fucking about with my cousins and seeing my elders. Although, Damon did look quite a bit older than me, so he couldn't have been one of the boys I played with as a child.

"Lana, right?" he had said when we got close enough to each other. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I knew I would say some shit that didn't make sense, or embarass myself to the point of making Damon think I was an illiterate, mentally disabled six-year old. "I just want to apologize for everything I was saying to you before. That must have been creepy for you."

I let out a laugh. What a guy; he was actually self-aware and knew when he was acting a very desperate man towards a teenage girl. Thankfully he knew how much of a pervert he was, though that did not excuse his behavior. My mind was swimming with thoughts about this man, but all came back to one road: his eyes.

"Damon?...yeah, Damon, I was definitely a little creeped out, but it's all good now," I had said back, trying to make the situation lighter. Maybe if I forgave him and made him feel good about himself, he would stop being such a freak and turn on the charm I knew he had. (There was no way he could look that good and not have the personality to back it up. I had never actually met a stupid beautiful person who didn't know how to use their charms for good or bad.)

"Maybe we can start over," he suggested, and I laughed again. If I were to date anyone in this godforsaken town, it would _not_ be Damon Salvatore. Even though I just said he was the only one I had met since I woke up that made me feel okay inside. He made me actually feel at home with him, which didn't make sense since I was sure we hadn't met before. Wouldn't I remember a character like Damon?

He actually looked hurt by my laugh. I had to rapidly cover it up with a cough, but the damage was already done. "What I mean is you don't want me."

He raised his eyebrow. "I don't want you? And that means, what?"

"Exactly as it sounds. I have a lot of baggage, and I don't think you would want to deal with all of it."

This time it was his turn to laugh. "Oh, honey, I don't think you know about baggage. If either one of us has it, it's me."

I just smiled in response, no words leaving my mouth. If he wanted to argue with me, he could. But I wasn't about to argue with him. My real mission was to find Carly in the sea of teenagers, not argue with a man who claimed he was a vampire about who had a more fucked up past. At least I could go to bed easy without thinking too much of my chance encounter with an escaped mental patient hiding out in the biggest house in town.

Damon got the hint that I was done talking and bowed back out of the conversation. "I should get going, make sure none of these intoxicated teens haven't fucked up any of my expensive art. Enjoy the party, Lana."

With that, he left me to only my thoughts. I watched as he slunk out of the kitchen, almost too quickly, through the shadows of the light. He left me with more questions than when I saw him. When I was speaking to Matt, I had almost forgot about the curious man who claimed I was his true love at some point in the past, and there he had to come, again, leaving me with more questions than answers. He knew that I wouldn't be able to get him out of my mind. It was too much to think about to just forget about it.

Carly's grunt broke me out of my memories of last night, bringing me back to the reality of our situation. I looked over to find her smiling up at me from my bed, sparkle in her eyes. With the sun shining down on her features, rays of light peeking through the silk curtains that were already in the room, I got to see how beautiful Carly really was.

Her milk chocolate hair cascaded down her shoulders, loose beach waves falling just below her bosom. She was one of those rare creatures who had green-hazel eyes, instead of blue or brown, that mesmerized even the most beautiful of creatures. Her cheeks still held a little baby fat in them, looking like she had some gum in her cheeks or as if she had just been punched and the swelling was just going down. There was something so beautiful about her; maybe it was the fact that she was so genuine when she spoke and how she acted. She didn't play games with people, and I could actually appreciate that for what it was: honesty.

"I heard that you and Matt had a pretty good time last night," she said suggestively, winking her left eye. I furrowed my brows in response, confused at her innuendo.

"Meaning?"

"You guys made out, didn't you?"

I thanked her inwardly for her bluntness, happy that she didn't tiptoe around the bush like my feelings were on a glass shelf ready to break. Carly was a true person, I knew that, but it felt all the more for her to prove it to me. Now I really knew I could be friends with this person. Maybe even better friends with her than I was with Kara, only because my memory was the most shit thing there ever was.

I laughed, shaking my head, and turned to look in the full length mirror Auntie brought in sometime yesterday after I left. Just as I thought, I looked tired as all fuck. My outfit didn't match as well as I thought it would and my braids looked a little worse for wear, but my faux dreads pulled off the messy look. I hadn't washed my hair in a few months like dreads, even though I was _supposed_ to wash my hair, I was too depressed to take care of myself properly.

"No, we didn't make out," I informed her softly, still staring at my reflection. I realized how vain I looked by talking to her while still looking at myself, but I didn't care much for appearances anymore. "We only talked, and I really feel like we vibed."

She raised her brows and winked at me, making me laugh again. This time, I turned around to face her again when I spoke. "Seriously, we only talked. But it's nothing really. I don't think I'm looking for a boy right now."

"Okay, but that's how love works," she tried, "it just hits you at random times. Unexpected times. Times you're 'not looking for a boyfriend.' Come on, Lana. Just give the boy a chance."

I shrugged. "I'm not going to _not_ give him a chance. But I'm just saying, I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now."

"Okay, sure, you're not looking for a boyfriend right now. I get that."

We both knew she was lying straight through her teeth without any kind of remorse, but I didn't feel like calling out a new friend on her bullshit. Better to put up with it and have a friend than to have no friends at all—that was my motto at least.

Silence fell over us. I hadn't a clue what to say to her after she lied to me, as I didn't respond well to lying even though I did it more than I cared to admit. She didn't know what more to lie about, or she was thinking about how unbelievable her previous lie actually was. She probably knew that I knew that she knew she wasn't going to give up on trying to find me a boy.

I wanted to turn around and look at myself again. That was one thing I actually liked to do. I had this fear; this fear that I would forget everything around me, even myself. I wanted to get to know myself as much as I could before I did—if I did.

"Let's go to mine," she said suddenly. "I have something to show you."

* * *

 **Hello, guys, it's katherineismikaelson. I know it's been a long fucking time since I've been on this site, and those reasons are kind of personal, but I promise I will try to keep up on my stories again. I hope you enjoy this chapter and the next chapter I plan to post in the next few days.**

 **Thank you everyone who is reading this story and I hope you enjoy the whole thing. I plan to answer fans, so leave your questions and predictions in the comments, or just anything in the comments really. I love feedback from you guys.**

 **katherineismikaelson**


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